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Topic: Emeril's Deep Dish (Read 5896 times)

A couple of nights ago I caught a re-run of Emeril's pizza party show on "Emeril Live". At the end he made a deep dish with the oven at 450, but he said to cook it for 20-25 minutes. His pizza came out a perfect golden brown. There's no way any deep dish I've ever cooked has been done in 20-25 minutes! Were they fudging the results? A better oven? He did use a black deep dish pan--could this be it?

I am always skeptical about how dishes are prepared on programs like Emeril's, but a dark pan will cook a deep-dish faster than a shiny aluminum one. Like you, I have a pan around 9 1/2 inches, and I have been able to bake a deep-dish in it in around 25 minutes at 450 degrees F. (I preheat the oven at around 500 degrees F and lower the temperature to 450 degrees when I put the pan in the oven). If Emeril's deep-dish was larger than 9 1/2 inches, I am suspicious of the 450 degrees, 20-25 minutes claim, even in a dark pan.

I've been cooking Chicago-Style pizzas for about 1-1/2 years now, and the only time I've seen a pizza like that get done in 25 minutes is at a higher altitude, usually 4,000 ft and above. So I'd say it's pretty fishy.

Every time I have left a deep dish in the oven for 30 minutes, it has overcooked. In fact, I have had to tell people that want the recipe to cook it for 23 minutes at 425 degrees F. That has worked for me in my 10" x 3" Springform pan as well as my larger 2" pans.

BTW, I made several pizzas last week for my colleagues at work using your recipe. Yesterday morning one of the guys e-mailed me the Emeril Pizza episode that he recorded. I've yet to watch it but I think it was a subtle hint for me to keep 'em coming.

I am always skeptical about how dishes are prepared on programs like Emeril's, but a dark pan will cook a deep-dish faster than a shiny aluminum one. Like you, I have a pan around 9 1/2 inches, and I have been able to bake a deep-dish in it in around 25 minutes at 450 degrees F. (I preheat the oven at around 500 degrees F and lower the temperature to 450 degrees when I put the pan in the oven). If Emeril's deep-dish was larger than 9 1/2 inches, I am suspicious of the 450 degrees, 20-25 minutes claim, even in a dark pan.

Peter

Pete-zza,

I also preheat my oven to 500°, but I cook the pie at that temp for 5 min before lowering the temp to 450°.

I've been using the same 15" steel pan that I've received for Christmas in 1988. By now, it's extremely well seasoned, but I don't recall a pie ever taking more than 25 min to cook @ 450°; in fact, I usually check the pie at 20 min (5 at 500° + 15 at 450°) to make sure it doesn't burn. (I do remember burning the first few pies because I left them in too long. )

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This may seem like an impertinent question, but is your oven operation properly? I once had the lower heating element go and it took me quite a while to detect its failure. The top element was still working and putting out just enough heat to fool me.

Have you tried different ovens? I've been using four different ovens and my results have been consistent even with different pans. As long as I stay at or just under 25 minutes at 425 degrees F, things turn out okay. I may preheat to 450 but I turn it down to 425 as soon as the pizza goes in (deep dish only).

I've found that the bottom rack is too low for the top of the pie to cook before the bottom burns. I cook mine on the top rack for 15-18 min, then transfer it to the bottom rack for up to 10 min. to finish browning the bottom crust.

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